Release: President Forever 2012 v. 1.1.8

President Forever 2012 v. 1.1.8 has been released. This is the first official release. It features save-load and Veep selection at any point after your candidate has secured the nomination, among other things.

If you previously had the President Forever 2012 Beta installed, this will install to a different folder by default, and prompt for your keycode after install. You can then uninstall the Beta if desired.

Found a few bugs. Santorum and Paul dropped out. A few turns later i saved. When i came back, Santorum and Paul were human players and I had to control them the remainder of the game as well as my candidate. After I clinched the nomination, I was unable to save. It kept telling me the file couldn’t be written. Just thought I’d let the powers to be know in case you haven’t found those yet.

Thanks for the bug report – this has now been fixed in the latest internal version.

@Eric,

I’ll keep an eye out for being unable to save after the convention – it might have to do with having the ‘zombie’ primary opponents, because the game expects there to be only one candidate from a party after that party’s convention.

One thing I noticed while running as Santorum was the lack of momentum nationally from a victory in the Iowa Caucus. I campaigned my butt off in the Hawkeye State and won in a similar fashion as the real life candidate, but saw almost 0% change in my poll numbers.

Maybe you could change the game so if an unknown or low polling player wins a state by surprise (especially with Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina), their polls will jump tremendously. Just a thought.
POLLWONK

Do you plan on adding historical elections at some point? It would be interesting to see how the new game engine handles, for example, the “Dean Scream” in 2004 and the whole saga surrounding the Palin pick in 2008.

Also, will you be including the “nearly-rans” in the 2012 scenario (such as Christie, Huckabee, Palin, etc)?

Another note: The General Election starting map looks slightly innaccurate in regards to polling numbers. Technically, Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia should both be “tossups” while Florida and North Carolina should be “Republican Edge”. Also, New York and California are “Democratic Country” and should be the darkest shade of blue possible.

One part of the game that is also a bit annoying is how little debate prep does for your candidate. I ran the entire campaign, got Romney’s debate skill up to a 5… but still lost the debate to Obama (Who had only a 3). The only explanation I have for this is Obama’s IF was so high, but it detracts from the game since it’s then pretty much pointless to debate prep.

I don’t know what polls you are looking at, but if you go to real politics and look at the average of all the major polls, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina are tossups. Florida is either a toss up or barely Democrat, as is Ohio. Iowa is a tossup. California and New York are probably safely Democrat.

Even trying to be as objective as I can, I think the current game map for the start of the general election is giving Romney a huge boost compared to reality. I think the best thing to do is look at all the polls for that day, and do an average among the most reliable polls (hard work). I guess the same would have to be done on the primary start date.

They will probably be added eventually. They were no longer in the race by the time the current scenario’s primaries start date, though, so for now they’re not in it. (The others – Perry and so on – will be added soon.)

How much of a home bonus do candidates get? I feel like Santorum would compete in Pennsylvania no matter what, but he doesn’t show much of anything in the primaries for his own state. Additionally, I think certain states should be affected by whomever is chosen as the Candidate. Santorum may make PA a tossup vs Obama. Gingrich may make GA impossible for Obama to win and possibly keep VA in the red. Not sure where Ron Paul would harm Obama, NH?

If you read Nate Silver’s blog, check Intrade, and look into the history, Florida is generally a bit more Republican than Ohio. If you check polling data for the date at the beginning of the General election scenario, Obama and Romney are pretty much tied in Ohio while Romney has a narrow edge in Florida and North Carolina. Virginia and Wisconsin are both tossups.

My point about states like California and New York is that they’re not even going to be contestable this election. Obama is beating Romney by over 20% in New York in the polls. States like these should be the darkest blue possible, signifying it to be Obama country.

I’d suggest something in Romney’s abilities (or maybe an event that can occur sometimes) that makes Romney go on a role of incredible gaffes. I used to think Joe Biden was more gaffe prone; I don’t think that anymore. I don’t know how much of this is due to his 65 years and fatigue, or what.

As far as possible events, I’d like to see more Current events in the paper that might influence poll #s. Especially, when the final update comes out and you have all the current events. You could of course make some fictional possibilities, if they are realistic.

I know you haven’t started with historical scenarios yet, but I’ve started going through all my presidental election & president books and putting together all the candidates and optional candidates for every election. I don’t know where you’d want me to post that.

It would be cool if in some President Forever, maybe by 2016, you were able to create Presidential History Forever and you could start with the 1st election (really it only gets interesting by 1824) and you play through to the present day (or to the prospective next election). Sort of like a marathon, I guess.

Oh, and last suggestion for the night, for 2012 version. I would like to see the nomination of the president in congress more dramatically should there be a 269/269 tie. Maybe something similar to when the delegate count is to close at convention. First there would be the legal challenges. Maybe you could go state by state with the House votes?

Monday i played an extremely close race between Santorum and Obama and on election night i lost to Obama by one state Ohio and when i went to see percebtage points i had lost by .2% of the vote but there was only like 94% of the vote in. Are you planning on making the election map to where we will get all 100% of the votes?

I agree with Alec we need to have states called it is much more fun that way. and Kevins point is valid it happens to me all the time with all states never getting to 100% of the vote I mean if it is really close you can have the voting go on till like late the next night